North Carolina’s 747,000 voter roll removals are legal, routine voter list maintenance, experts say

On Sept. 26, North Carolina said it had removed almost 750,000 ineligible people from its voter rolls since January 2023. 

Misinformation immediately followed.

One Sept. 26 Instagram post featured a screenshot that included an X post from The Hill that read, "North Carolina removes 747,000 from voter rolls, citing ineligibility," along with a link to an article. In reply, another X user pointed out how close recent elections in North Carolina have been.

"They’re trying to steal the election right before our eyes," the Instagram post concluded.

On Sept. 29, an X user cast doubt on the action’s legitimacy — while simultaneously acknowledging that nothing seemed amiss: "So we have zero evidence of any wrongdoing but conveniently a month away the republicans do this. Smells like election fraud to me."

These characterizations of the removals are inaccurate. 

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections explained why it removed registrants, and experts told PolitiFact that the move appeared to be normal voter roll cleanup, which state law requires. 

The bipartisan North Carolina State Board of Elections, three Democrats and two Republicans, said in a news release that county election officials had removed 747,274 "ineligible registration records" from the state’s voter rolls. 

Although that is a large number, North Carolina State Board of Elections spokesperson Patrick Gannon told PolitiFact this "was not a one-time ‘purge,’" of voters.

"The 747,000 ineligible voter records were removed from the voter rolls gradually over the past 20 months," since January 2023, Gannon said. 

Nearly 7.7 million people are registered to vote in North Carolina. U.S. Census Bureau data estimated that North Carolina had a voting age population of about 8.5 million as of July 2023.

Gannon said registrants were removed "for various and valid reasons, as required by state and federal laws." In its news release, the board further explained why records can be removed, including if a registrant: 

• Moved to a different county or out of state. 

• Was inactive for two federal general elections — meaning two elections in which U.S. senators, U.S. representatives and/or the president are elected to office — and did not respond after their county board of elections sent mailers trying to confirm their eligibility. 

• Died.

• Was convicted of a felony and is serving some sort of sentence.

• Had a duplicate registration. 

• Asked to be removed. 

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• Was the subject of a successful voter challenge. 

• Was not a U.S. citizen. 

Ann Webb, policy director for Common Cause North Carolina, a voting rights advocacy group, said North Carolina’s news release doesn’t mean eligible voters were removed from the voter rolls entirely — it signals that the rolls were "cleaned up." 

"The most common reason why someone was listed as having been ‘removed’ from the voter rolls was because they showed up and registered in another place," she said. "They moved out of that county and they were registered in another county." 

Most removals were in 2023. In 2024, North Carolina removed about 224,500 registrants from its voter rolls.

Gannon said concerned voters can check that their voter record is alive and up to date through the state’s voter search tool. 

"Election officials take great care not to remove eligible voters and rely only on official sources of information when conducting list maintenance, as required by law," he said.

Multiple election experts said the removal of about 747,000 registrants from North Carolina’s voter rolls across nearly two years reflects normal list maintenance, which state and federal law requires.

The 1993 National Voter Registration Act created rules for when election officials can remove people from voter rolls if they didn’t ask to be removed. It requires states to have a uniform and nondiscriminatory process for removing people from voter rolls, according to the Justice Department. With some exceptions, states must complete voter roll maintenance no later than 90 days before an election.

Webb said the actions described in the state board’s news release signaled that North Carolina election officials complied with those laws.  

"It’s really critical that folks understand this was not a sudden action," Webb said of the removals. The news release "was a report on 20 months worth of work in all 100 counties across the state."

David Becker, the executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan group that works with election officials from both political parties to build trust in elections, wrote on X that the number of removals was expected, "reflecting people who have died or moved out of NC in the last 20 months."

David Becker, the executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan group that works with election officials from both political parties to build trust in elections, wrote on X that the number of removals was expected, "reflecting people who have died or moved out of NC in the last 20 months."

I've seen a lot of misunderstanding about this, and similar claims in other states. This is normal list maintenance, conducted over nearly 2 years. This is mostly removal of inactive records, not voters who still live in NC. This is the number we'd expect, reflecting people who… https://t.co/pNwac6725f

— David Becker (@beckerdavidj) September 27, 2024

Hilary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights at Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said the state board’s news release aimed to educate the public about its voter roll maintenance in response to "a barrage of false information" and "baseless lawsuits" attacking the state’s voter rolls and alleging without evidence "that there is widespread noncitizen voting." 

She said the Southern Coalition for Social Justice has concerns that some voters — particularly voters in marginalized groups — struggle to register to vote and might be removed from voter rolls incorrectly when election officials engage in some traditional list maintenance activities. 

"But there’s no single purge that they have taken or something in response to the lawsuits at all," Harris Klein said. "This is all part of their statutorily required voter list maintenance."

Eligible North Carolina voters with a North Carolina driver’s license or other ID can register online to vote until Oct. 11. After that, people can register and vote from Oct. 17 to Nov. 2 at any early voting site in their county. Voters in North Carolina cannot register to vote on Election Day, Nov. 5. 

An Instagram post said North Carolina removed 747,00 voters from the voter rolls to try to "steal the election." 

The State Board of Elections said that about 747,000 voters had been removed from the states’ voter rolls since January 2023, but this was neither covert nor illegal. The change reflects normal voter list maintenance, which state and federal law requires. We rate this claim False.

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